Repercussions
by Angels-Protegee
Summary: With no options left to her, Christine must make a choice and face the consequences of her decisions.


**This has been waiting for its chance for awhile now, and since I'm still stuck on an "Echo of a Dream" update, maybe you won't mind giving this one a shot. It's pretty much the lair in Christine's POV. Mainly Webber with some Leroux insanity. Enjoy!  
**

Why must we only see clearly when we look behind us, when the choices have already been made, the actions carried out, and the power slipped from our hands for good? Only when it's too late to take it back do we realize that we went wrong somewhere, we were somehow mistaken and our judgment at fault. If there was only some magic solution to take us back and make the right turning!

In my case, however, I'm not sure it would be any use. Where did all of this begin? At what point did these phantasms creep in and shape this nightmare? I can't quite tell...fear blocks out all rational thought, and it paralyzes me as I see the noose tighten around Raoul's neck.

There must be someone to blame for this! Someone is responsible for this...this...tragedy. Is that what this is? It must be, for I see no happy endings on the horizon.

That voice, once so adored and once worshiped as an idol rings in my ears, laying another choice before me. My life, or my beloved's? It's down to me to decide. I despise him all the more for leaving it at my discretion. He knows I can't win, that I can't choose, that I've never made the right choices...

"You can't do this," I murmur, then again, my voice rising in my terror, "you can't do this!"

_"You can't do this, Papa. You can't leave me!"_

_"I'm sorry, Christine. I have to leave you."_

_I was at my father's bedside, clutching his hand and feeling it already go cold in my grasp. The illness had ravaged his body and left him helpless, lying in bed without even the strength to sit up as he spoke to me for the last time._

_Tears stung my eyes and clouded my vision when all I wanted was to keep him in my sight for as long as possible. I bowed my head over his hand and kissed it, as he'd kissed Mother's when she died. I had barely enough memories of her to piece together a picture of her face, but Papa—he was my whole world. "I don't want you to die," I told him. "I don't want to be alone. I don't want to lose you."_

_His eyes, the only spark of life in his face, focused on me and he said, "But you won't be alone, Christine. Remember? I'm going to send you the Angel of Music. He will watch over you when I'm not here, and that I promise you."_

_He'd been making that promise ever since his cough began and he'd had to hide the red stains on his handkerchiefs. I don't know who he made it for, my benefit or his, trying to ease the pain of the separation he knew was coming. It was just hollow words as I sat there with him, watching the light slowly leave his eyes. "Papa," I begged, "Papa, please..."_

_"I'll send him, Christine. I promise." He gave one last breath, and he was gone._

_But I didn't want an Angel of Music. I just wanted my father..._

I'm alone again as I stand there, my eyes leaping from one man to another like cornered prey, waiting for the death blow to fall and wondering who would catch it, me or Raoul. I settle at last on that accursed face, devoid of pity and human kindness but filled with an insane rage instead, and it's the most terrible face I've ever seen. I can't be bound to a madman for the rest of my life! "Please, please release him," I entreat. "Don't force me to this, I beg you! It's—it's too monstrous!"

"Monstrous, Christine?" he sneers back at me, that demented glare shooting daggers into my soul. "Only fitting, don't you think? Weren't those your own words, mademoiselle? Horror? Corpse? Monster?" He begins to laugh, first a wicked giggle, then a mad cackle, growing louder and madder until the hair on the back of my neck prickles and he can hardly stand upright in his mirth. "You forget magic djinn, mademoiselle, with the power to make all your wishes come true! You asked for the monster, and behold! I give you the monster!"

"Christine," I hear Raoul gasp, and I turn to see him struggling against the rope. "Christine, save yourself..."

"Oh, don't be so quick to end the fun, monsieur!" my former teacher tells him, capering over to stand before him and leaning in close so they are face to face. "You're quite welcome to stay as long as you like—as long as you live, even! Though I don't know how much longer that will be, I'm afraid...it all rests with the mademoiselle, you see!"

God, please don't remind me! I cover my ears with my hands, but I can still hear the next words. "What do you think of me, monsieur? Quite the handsome devil, aren't I? The mademoiselle disagrees with me; she prefers to see a monster."

"I'm sorry!" I burst out desperately. "I shouldn't have said that! I'm so sorry—"

"I don't want to hear your apologies!" he roars, amusement shattering into fury again. "It's too late for them, and they won't save you or the little chap!" He advances upon me and I back away, terrified to see how rage manipulates those cadaverous features and makes them demonic...

_"Go on, Christine, look at me! You wanted to see, now see!"_

_"No, please, please forgive me—"_

_"No, I insist!" He seized me by the hair and held me so I couldn't turn away from him. I still had the mask in my hands after stealing it away, the sum of all the lies he'd told me. I had worshiped an angel, been carried off by a man, and now stared down the Devil himself. He was a mockery of life, an animated corpse with eyes that burned like the flames of Hell. I tried to close mine, but the image was already burned into my memory._

_"Don't you dare try to shut your eyes now!" he shouted, moving his hands from my hair to my throat. "Look at me, damn you! Damn you women and your curiosity! Why couldn't you be satisfied with never seeing me, Christine, why?"_

_"I'm so sorry!" I cried, my heart racing so I couldn't tell one beat from another. "I'm sorry, please forgive me, just let me go—"_

_"Let you go? Why would I do that? You've seen me, Christine, and now you would leave me forever! I can't let you go ever again! You'll never be free as long as you live!"_

_I sobbed aloud, the sight of his wrath too terrible to endure but too terrified to close my eyes again. I could see nothing but madness in that infernal gaze, but I believed every word he said—like I always had._

_"So, what do you think of me, Christine?" he demanded harshly, a note of insane glee ringing in the question. "I'm quite handsome, don't you think? All the ladies love me; they fall at my feet in worship, just as you are now. Tell me, now that you see me. What do you think?"_

_Even then, I knew what answer was expected of me, and I felt as though the words were being dragged from my unwilling lips. "I think you're very handsome."_

_"Like a prince in a fairy tale, wouldn't you say?"_

_"Yes. Exactly like a fairy tale."_

_But this was no story in a book..._

And there would be no prince to rescue me. Looking at him again, I know what answer he wants, and I know what will happen when I give it—what will happen no matter what answer I give. He still wants the fairy tale, and if playing the villain is what it takes to make it come true, then so be it.

I cast my eyes to Raoul again, seeing his desperation and his fear, and I know it's all for me. He knows as well as I do what will come about no matter what I choose tonight. And I find that I can't choose after all. How can I?

"You must decide, mademoiselle," the crazed voice urges me. "Choose, or I shall choose for you."

How can I choose, I want to scream, when every choice leads to the same outcome? There is no choice to be made, and it's cruel to pretend otherwise. I want to cry, I want to run, oh Raoul, why couldn't we have just run away when we had the chance? Now there's nowhere on earth for us to hide.

"Come now, choose!" he says again, his voice rising. "While we're still living!" With that, he gives another cackle and the rope around Raoul's neck tightens. His struggles to breathe echo in my head and drown out everything else. "Choose!"

"I can't!" I cry out. "I can't do this!"

"Shall I do it for you, then?"

"No! Please, just release him—"

"So you choose to stay?"

"No, I—"

"Then you prefer to save yourself?"

"Stop it! Just stop it!"

"Then make your choice!" he shouts.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I ask frantically. "How can you be so heartless?"

"Heartless? On the contrary, mademoiselle, it's my heart that drives me to do this. I do these things because I love you."

_Know that it is a corpse that loves you and will never leave you..._

I press my hands to my face. "Oh, God help me!"

"It's no use, Christine! God abandoned this world long ago!"

Like Papa abandoned me...

_"Yes, Christine, I am the Angel."_

_I thought my heart would burst with joy. I hadn't dared to hope Papa would keep his promise or even that he could keep it at all; still, I'd clung to the dream ever since his death as the only thing I had left of him. When I'd first heard that heavenly voice singing—singing for_ me—_it__ had seemed too good to be true. Now that the dream had been made real, I was ready to embrace it. It had never occurred to me to suspect a mortal trickster was toying with my mind and playing me for a fool..._

"You lied to me!" I cry. It was his fault! If it wasn't for his deception, Raoul and I wouldn't be here. "I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust!"

"And the same holds true for you, Christine!" he replies furiously. "I would have given you my world, but you tore it to pieces! Oh, Christine, I don't like doing these things to you, but don't you see how you force me to them? If you would only love me, you would see beyond the monster! You could learn, Christine, to see and to love!"

I see Raoul shake his head slowly, either in disbelief at what he hears or to tell me to refuse. But I can't refuse! I can't decide! It was never in my power to decide!

"You give me your word that you'll release him?" I plead, desperate to know and to buy more time.

"Christine!" Raoul gasps wildly.

"Hold your tongue, monsieur," comes the sharp command, "or I will silence it for you." He turns his eyes back to me and I take a step back away from him. "It's time to grow up, Christine," he tells me. "The day is getting old, and we're not getting any younger. Choose! Now!"

"Why are you being so cruel?"

"Is this cruelty? What of your own? Have you been any less cruel? If I'm at fault for what I've done all for love of you, then you are no less guilty for what you've done in rejection of it."

"Am I guilty for loving another instead? I can't make my heart choose you!"

"I can live with that for the moment—"

And the rope tightens some more.

"No!" I scream. "Please, no!"

"Then make your choice, damn it!"

But I can't! Choose to stay with a monster for the rest of time, or choose to buy my freedom at the price of my beloved's life—who could make that choice? How could he expect me to?

I can't see through the tears falling freely from my eyes. Until this moment, I've never known what it was to truly hate, to feel that disease spreading through you until you're nearly sick with it. It's something I never wanted to learn, but he forced it upon me and I hate him all the more for it.

"Time is running out, mademoiselle! Soon the choice will have been made for you!"

"Damn you!" I burst out. "Damn you, you evil bastard! How can you love me and make me do this?"

"Stop playing games," he warns me in a dangerous snarl. " I'm nearly fed up with you!"

"But this is your fault!" Somewhere in my mind I hear something urge me not to provoke him any further, but something else is already screaming out this injustice. "You couldn't just leave me alone! You wouldn't let me be!"

"You abandoned me, Christine! I could have loved you, oh how I could have loved you, despite what you'd done to me—"

"What _I'd_ done? You lied to me! You told me you were the angel my father promised on his death bed to send me!"

"Is the liar any more to blame than the fool only too willing to believe in him?" he snaps mercilessly.

"But I _did _believe in you!" I cry out in pain and anger. "I believed you, and you were a liar!" I couldn't stop saying it. "I believed you...I believed...I did..."

But...how could I have been so blind? He had lied to me, but I had swallowed it like a fish swallows a baited hook. Hadn't I known all along that something wasn't right? No, perhaps not...not at first...but it hadn't been long before I'd begun to question the reality of the fantasy. Surely it was too good to be true! My father's dying promise fulfilled! I could barely believe it!

And I _wanted _to believe it! I had clung to it with all my might, discounting reason and spurning sense, desperate as I was to have my Papa back again! I could push the blame away all I tried, but I couldn't escape it anymore. I had brought my own share of this upon myself.

But Raoul didn't deserve to suffer for it! He was innocent in all of this, his only crime being to dare to love me. He shouldn't be caught up in this. He wasn't to blame.

More tears fall, just when I think I can't shed another. I press my hand to my lips and look back at him, once-teacher, devil in disguise. His eyes bore into me and he says one last time, "Make your choice."

My gaze turns to Raoul, and I can see him pleading silently. He shouldn't be here...it's not his fault. No matter what I choose, he will pay for it somehow, I know he will. Whether through his death or his heart breaking, he will know his own share of pain, and to truly love him I'll have to cause him more. Still, I have to decide...I have to try...

But I've never made the right decisions...


End file.
